Skulptur Projekte returns to Münster

An exhibition held every 10 years in Münster is dedicated to great sculpture, which in 2017 celebrates its fourth edition with 35 artists and as many site-specific works. Among the city's squares and gardens

Every ten years the brightest planets in the art world align along a single axis. They are the biggest and most historic exhibitions of old Europe that happen to coincide along the same European art trajectory, in the same week. The happy coincidence allows art enthusiasts to visit the Biennale di Venezia, Documenta in Kassel and Skulptur Projekte in Münster (open until 1 October 2017) all within a few days.

This last one, considered the biggest exhibition dedicated to sculpture, has in fact taken place every ten years since 1977. Its site-specific public art projects (with very few permanent ones) invade every corner of this city (supermarkets, abandoned buildings, streets, gardens) with the most ephemeral of works, such as installations and performances (Xavier Le Roy, whose work straddles dance and visual arts, is one of the authors).

Xavier Le Roy, Still Untitled, 2017. (Photo Henning Rogge)

Among the 35 projects spread out across the city, which are curated by Kasper König, there are works by Lara Favaretto, Ei Arakawa, Gerard Byrne, Jeremy Deller, Thomas Schütte and Cerith Wyn Evans. Breathtaking, for the subtle and impalpable but extremely powerful metaphor constructed, is the work of the artist Ayse Erkmen (Istanbul, 1949). She speaks of her country and of the Bosphorus, where she was born and raised. And creates a walkway that skims the surface of the water, just slightly below it, that unites the two extremely different banks of a canal in the city’s port. Visitors with their feet in the water go from one side – where new bars and restaurants are coming to life in old warehouses – to the other, where time has stopped and the warehouses have been left abandoned.

Ayse Erkmen, On Water, 2017. (Photo Henning Rogge)

Apocalyptic, on the other hand, is the post-glacial landscape in which Pierre Huyghe immerses visitors, who enter a former ice rink in small groups. He brought rocks, earth and mud into the space, creating a landscape that changes thanks to the rain that comes in through the skylights that open intermittently. And changes the path, day after day. An app also allows for virtual reality visits.

A lot of noise, machine gun fire and shouting. The quite shocking sounds...

16 May 2019

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